Faced with an obesity epidemic, that has dramatic consequences for medical costs, pundits have proposed different solutions, ranging from excluding obesity from health insurance, government-run prevention campaigns, higher taxes on junk food, or higher premiums for fat people.

The possibility of greater government involvement in medicine with the passing of ObamaCare puts this debate in a new light. If the government decides who gets money for medical treatment, the question of whether fat people deserve medical treatment will become a political issue.

The question of who "deserves" treatment is only conceivable in a welfare state. In a free, capitalist society, people are able to allocate their wealth according to their judgment of the merit of their own and others health, including the degree to which they are culpable for their condition. However, there is no rational way to allocate property taken by force.

Does Jake, who became paralyzed because he liked extreme sports, or Kate, who has lung cancer because she is a smoker, or Mary, who has problems because has a tendency towards obesity which she does not try to control with diet or exercise, or Sue, who is dying from old age, and whose life might be slightly extended at tremendous cost deserve my money?

Boom! There it is! I’ve been saying it since before Obama was elected - socialized medicine is the end of your freedom. If healthcare is as critical a resources as its proponents say, why would you put it under government, which can DENY you that care, even if you have the money for it? Or should I say, deny you care, UNLESS YOU DO WHAT THEY SAY.

5
posted on 12/05/2009 9:36:40 AM PST
by domenad
(In all things, in all ways, at all times, let honor guide me.)

For all you guys who say "yes, treat them" I'm with you. I like this comment from the site:

Exactly. If you don't want to treat a certain segment of our population for the results of willingly , then those segments should be defined and exempted from paying INTO the system. Somehow I never hear those who don't want to treat these people out of fairness to other recipients alarmed about the fairness of making them pay but not allowing them to collect.

Then there's the whole issue of politically correct high-risk populations. Those who want to shut the gates on smokers, drinkers, fatties, and bungee jumpers never seem to want to do the same to active homosexuals, a population willingly engaging in a behavior that leads to a higher risk of an illness thats VERY expensive to treat. Now read carefully, Im not taking the opposite inconsistent position, that it WOULD be fair to allow homosexuals to pay in and then be denied treatment. Im just pointing out that the proponents of restrictions are inconsistent PC hypocrites.

But really, all this paradoxical situation does is show that government shouldn't have a high degree of involvement in our lives. Every time they do, these hard choices arise. The government intrudes in our life in one area without invitation, then uses that involvement to justify further intrusion.

People are still going to look out for their own interests first, but introducing government into the equation will change whose interests are at stake. What socialized medicine does is substitute an economic decision made by the people directly involved into a political decision made by outsiders.

How it is that someone could think that — drawing from the same pool of ‘selfish’ people — having it so there is a monopoly that is enforced by the coercive power of government is somehow going to be more compassionate or efficient baffles me.

Do people “deserve” food? Since we are talking health, and since food is indispensable to health, how long until they reach the logical conclusion that “we” as a society surely have a right to food at taxpayers expense.

But the premise that someone has "a right to healthcare" means "a right to" seize values by force from those who produce them and give them to those who did not earn them. In such a slave society, people exist and produce values by permission, to the degree in which those in power find them useful. Whether their values are seized directly, such as in socialism, or are nominally theirs but controlled by the state, such as in the fascist state our healthcare system is in, is irrelevant.

Unfortunately, we are already here. If not in practice, it is in mindset by a near majority of citizens in one degree or another.

22
posted on 12/05/2009 9:46:59 AM PST
by Jagdgewehr
(The GOP faithful want me to believe I have only two voting options......"bad" and "worse")

The fact that such a question needs to be asked is frightening. This is exactly what led Germany to the concentration camps. Once you start asking who deserves medical care, it's a short half step to asking who should be allowed to live. Yeah, yeah ....can't happen here. Don't be too sure.

Already we have Zeke Emanual, the man who wants to scrap the Hippocratic oath, advising the Kenyan warlord. We're all supposed to line up for this in the name of reduced costs, which won't happen. What about ethics? We've seen how government ethics work with the IRS. If you can't pay your taxes, SCREW YOU! We'll take your home and everything else. We're heading for the day when it will be, "Oh you're too fat SCREW YOU!!! No more blood pressure meds!".

23
posted on 12/05/2009 9:48:26 AM PST
by YankeeReb
(There's no such thing as Free Health care OR a JOBLESS RECOVERY)

Yup. The only moral way to ration health care is through good old Supply and Demand. This is true for everything. It's always been true. You can have anything you can pay for.

The problem (of course) is that as we move further and further from a market-based health care system, the government-imposed mandates become a bigger disturbance in the chain of supply.

If virtually everyone's current healthcare provider covers mammograms for women in their 40's, then that's great. But as soon as the government determines that mammogras are not needed by this group, you can bet that virtually everyone's healthcare provider will stop providing such coverage.

At that point, we've left Supply and Demand behind, and we are left to deal with the fallout of what our masters feel we deserve to have.

We're all in the same boat together -- we're not in particular groups.

Here:

"I simply turn on the Golden EIB Microphone and share my honest passions and beliefs with people.And they're free to go elsewhere.They're free to ignore; they're free to believe; they're free to be entertained, I don't care.They're free to do whatever they want.But a lot of people aren't free to smoke cigarettes where they want;they're not free to drink where they want;they're not free to eat the kind of food they want to eat;they're not free to eat trans fats;they're not free to drive certain places.Pretty soon we're going to be told what kind of cars we have to drive.I can't cause that.I can't restrict anybody's freedom.We've elected a guy who can, does, and wants to, all under the guise of saving us.So I appreciate the effort, and I appreciate somewhat losing my temper here.But don't compare me ever to an authoritarian who thinks so little of people that without him they can barely breathe on their own.Don't ever do that."

LEARN IT, LOVE IT, LIVE IT!

If one cannot understand Rush's words above, then one does not truly understand FREEDOM!

It is the left who wants to turn health care into a RIGHT...of if Americans have a RIGHT to healthcare, then ALL AMERICANS have the RIGHT to healthcare...or...it then becomes a CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE, and a CONSITITUTIONAL ISSUE.

However, as the liberals all say, the best CURE is PREVENTION...so we need to PREVENT this healthcare boondoggle from every seeing the light of day by exercising our other RIGHTS, the FIRST AMENDMENT, which is protected by the SECOND AMENDMENT.

Also, we need to change the rhetoric...if this debacle comes to fruition, "protest" and "march" should be two words that morph into "invade". We need to show Washington (non-violent) "shock and awe"...a few million people to just jam the city into lockdown.

We can either go and camp out on the capitol steps now, or wait until they put us all into tents where we will have to "camp out" for the rest of our lives.

ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS - FEAR IS NOT AN OPTION

32
posted on 12/05/2009 9:55:28 AM PST
by FrankR
(SENATE: You cram it down our throats in '09, We'll shove it up your ass in '10...count on it.)

What I see as a (one of many, many, many) missed opportunity for the GOP on the health-care debate is the specious argument about the relative cost of health-care in the US. We can all accept that we have the best health-care in the world. We can also accept that those who pay the most, whether for luxury cars, big houses, restaurant meals, first class tickets, etc. get better products. I never thought it was a good idea to implement a lowest bid process for heart surgery.

Rush forgot to say that people aren’t free to use recreational drugs, to sell recreational drugs, to sell sexual services, to buy sexual services or to procure lethal drugs to commit suicide. A lot more people would like to have those freedoms than the freedom to eat trans fats.

IMHO anyone who needs anything beyond basic care will find that they get no care or care will come too late. There is a reason30% more people die of cancer in countries with this sort of healthcare system. The wait weeds them out. I’m personally petrified since I am a type 1 diabetic and am at the 39 year mark but still in relatively good health. What happens in 15 years when something major could happen and I’m 64 yo? Right now my private insurace would take care of me at 80%.

I do....for me and my family. I do not want the state to confiscate more of my wages to pay for "everyone" else at my expense and that of my dependents. I gladly pay for emergency first responder care....fire, paramedic, police....for my community. Apart from that, the rest is up to each individual.

44
posted on 12/05/2009 10:09:14 AM PST
by Jagdgewehr
(The GOP faithful want me to believe I have only two voting options......"bad" and "worse")

They are arguing that health care is a right and that is why government should provide free health care to all...and in doing so, they will destroy free market health care.

But they also say that to make it cost effective they will limit or deny care to certain individuals in certain circumstances to eliminate waste that pervades the current free market health care system.

Is that not a paradox?

If the government takes over health care and in the process destroys free market health care for the purpose of providing free health care to all, but to balance the books and cut “waste” must deny care to some...see where I’m going with this?

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? They just destroyed their own purpose for starting this whole mess in the first place.

But worse than that, they will be violating our rights (pursuit of happiness) for the purpose of guaranteeing a right that doesn’t exist (free health care to all), and they can’t even make good on that promise either!

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